Minicon Dawn 8

Usual disclaimers, I still don't own any rights to these characters.

Note on Continuity. When I first started this story it was a simple continuity G1, BW, BM and Armada. You may have noticed that from at least the last chapter if not before I have since expanded it to include ALL existing TF cartoons. In order of occurrence in my new timeline G1, Headmasters (don't ask, I haven't figured out how both versions of Headmasters could have happened yet.), Masterforce, Victory, Zone, RID, Beast Wars, Beast Wars 2 (takes place at the same time as BW), Beast Wars Neo (takes place between BW and their arrival on Cybertron for BM), Beast Machines, and from another Cybertron, Armada which represents the present. If TF:Universe should prove to be a big thing, then I can easily account for it as well (I think). I am still trying to decide if the Botcon Comics should apply in this continuity, as that would affect any Tigertron and Airrazor revivals. Either way the events in Armada take place a LONG time after 2010. maybe 2610.

Part 8:

Resurections

Cybertron.

Waspinator carried Botanica high into the skies of Cybertron, looking at her from time to time to make sure she was relatively all right. For her part the shock of her sudden abduction had dulled the intense pain she had been feeling into a major migraine. She held on to Waspinator for dear life as they traveled high, and fast across the landscape of Cybertron.

She didn't even know where she was, exactly any more, although she had the feeling they were traveling towards one of the poles.

The pain was still constant. It was her pain. Cybertron's pain. She and the world had become too close of late, and her desire to push her abilities with the new Techno Organic plant life, had been too much.

Waspinator began to descend.

She had gone too far too quickly, and lost control. It had been too much for the planet to bare. It had been too much for her, and both were now in pain, and she no longer knew how to stop it.

She had wanted to fulfill Primals dream of a green Cybertron. She had wanted to prove Megatron wrong and take this petty revenge on him for the death of her crew. She had wanted to use her skills to house the millions of restored Transformers and teach them to use their new abilities.

Instead it had all gone wrong, the plants under her guidance had gone wild, destroying what little housing there was, and driving many Transformers to hate what they had now become.

It was all her fault.

Finally Waspinator found the area he had been looking for and gently landed, still holding Botanica in his arms, not letting her touch the ground. He tilted his head looking at her, trying to think of the best way to say something, but not quite finding it.

"Waspinator sorry," he said. "This may sting a little."

He laid her down on the ground.

For the first time since the Reformatting, she was touching bare metal. The psychic shock of it was like clearing the cobwebs from her mind with a steel rod. She inhaled sharply, and the world once again came into focus within her mind.

All across Cybertron the rapidly growing plants suddenly stopped, and began to recede. They did not go away completely, but shrank back to tolerable levels so that the Transformers across the planet were no longer being forced out of their homes by the undergrowth.

It was an event put down by many as a miracle. Those of Cheetor's staff tried to take credit for it in order to bolster their waning authority. Gigatron tried to claim credit to support his own ends. No one knew the truth.

"Thank you. Waspinator?" Botanica said with gratitude. "You have put me back in balance. Ill know better next time, to let things happen slowly and naturally."

Waspinator knew that in his new roll he should say something truly cosmic to her, but for some reason nothing came to him. And the last thing he wanted was to remind her that he was the suppressed mind within the Vehicon Thrust. Instead he just shrugged and flew away, leaving her to wonder just how in the inferno she was supposed to get back home.

Botanica sighed and began to walk.

****

Earth's Moon:

Demolisher pointed out to space and shouted, "Shockwave has returned, Megatron."

Megatron looked up at the approaching space battleship and leaned in close to Starscream. "I thought you said his name was Tidalwave?"

"It is," Starscream replied, then realized that Megatron didn't understand why Demolisher had called him by the wrong name. "Don't worry, you'll get use to it." Or at least that is what he kept telling himself.

Tidalwave transformed and stood before Megatron. "I could not find anyone by the name Octain."

Galvatron must have caught up with him after all, it seemed. "Very well. Return to your duties." Megatron said, then again leaned to whisper to Starscream. "Doesn't he have any personality at all?"

"No. but he has a lot of firepower, and transforms into armor for you, so a personality would really get in the way."

"I see. I'm beginning to like him a lot better now," Megatron said with a smirk.

Demolisher shouted again, "Thrust is coming in, and hes got someone with him!"

"Ahh. One of my warriors has met with success, at least," Megatron said.

The two jets, the black with green trim Thrust, followed by another who was purple and tan flew in low, and transformed into their robot modes just before they reached Megatron and Starscream.

"This is Megatron." Thrust told his companion.

"Your not the Megatron I remember," the other said.

"Demolisher, Thrust, leave the room. I intend to persuade our guest into coming out of retirement."

Demolisher grumbled but left the room, followed by Thrust. But Thrust hung back at the door. There was no way he was going to be edged out by some newcomer. He stopped to listen.

"Blitzwing." Megatron said, his voice raising a few octaves until it sounded like an annoying half screech, "I'm shocked you don't recognize me!"

The pruple and tan Tranformer took a step back in shock. "St-starscream?? How?"

Both Starscreams laughed, then Megatron continued. "Oh, my old friend. Let me tell you about everything that happened while you were in retirement. See you went into hiding from Galvatron, but he forgot all about you when Octane also betrayed him."

"But. didn't he kill you?" Blitzwing asked.

"I'm getting to that part."

****

A bar at the hind end of space:

The Rusty Scraplette. the bar of choice for Mining Mechanoids, and robots of ill repute and has-beens. It was was filled with the fowl smell of burning oil and half digested smelt. The only thing in the place dirtier than the energon food was the tables and floors, but most of the clientele didn't go there for the food, but for the atmosphere, such as it was. The best place in the galaxy to kill someone/thing in front of an audience and not have any witnesses. A deactivated mechanoid was propped up in the corner, it had expired the previous year, but no one had yet gotten around to disposing of it.

One of the few working appliances in the place was an old Junkion brand TV mounted above the bar, that had until recently only been able to show 1000 year old Earth programmes, but someone had gotten around to installing a relay that allowed it to get current Earth programming instead of waiting for the signals to travel the thousand years it took them to get that far out into space naturally.

"I still cant believe they quit showing reruns of GI Jack," Axer said, looking up at the news report on the TV.

"You and your cartoons," his friend Zero replied. "You'll find something else to watch. What about that Digimon show?"

"No reruns of that one anymore either."

"That does suck then."

The TV showed the basic white male in a suit and tie, reading news off of off screen cue cards. In the right corner behind the man was an Autobot symbol.

"That's odd," Zero said, finally glancing up at the screen. "Hey, J.O., turn the sound up a bit."

In the shadows a large form rustled around and the sound to the TV raised up into the audible levels. "Reports keep coming in from people who say they have seen large robots who can transform into vehicles. Such reports are the stuff of history, but they are again becoming common. Are these nothing more than 'Elvis sightings' or have the Transformers broken the century old truce and-"

A half full bottle of liquid energon-oil smashed the TV screen to pieces.

Axer and Zero ducked from the shock of the subject of their attention's sudden demise, and turned to see who had taken it on themselves to destroy the one good thing about the bar.

It was a smaller mechanoid, a red torso with gold accents, and white arms legs and head, with a silver face. He was small, a Micromaster by Transformer standards. Without a word he stood up and walked out of the bar.

"Why you." Axer began, with every intention to follow the smaller mechanoid out to teach him a new brand of manners. He was stopped by the solid grip of Zero on his shoulder, holding him back.

"Why? Whats with him?" Axer demanded.

"Cause hes one of them," Zero replied. "You know how they say that if you don't learn to bend, you'll break?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he broke. A long time ago."

Outside, the small transformer hurried to his plane, and climbed into the cockpit.

****

Earth:

"Uh. Thanks for comin out here with me, Alexis," Rattrap said. "I don't think I could have found it without help."

"Its no problem, Rattrap," the young human girl said. "Actually if you hadn't asked me to help you look for it I never would have known it existed. They don't really cover that area of history in school. And I don't mind helping you. We both want what's best for the Minicons. Those that don't want to fight should be able to go to a world where they wont have to. Was this really a city? The Guys will be sorry they missed this."

"Yeah. second oldest Autobot construction on your planet. It use to be larger, but the Metroplex portion left with the rest of the Autobots."

"Why did they leave?" Alexis asked.

"I don't know, but they didn't all leave. A few stayed behind to watch for Decepticons, but only ones who could pass as human."

The two of them were making good time riding on two of the Street Team Minicons, but the sheer scope of the old Autobot City made it seem like forever.

"You mean they could transform into humans, like you said you could once transform into a organic looking rat?"

"Not like that, it was a lot more primitive. It was more like an organic shell that they used to pretend to be human."

"Ok," Alexis said, still not really understanding.

"Yeah, but the last battle was a really nasty one so they all left the planet too, but we eventually came back and formed better relations. We had a Zone base here for a while."

"What's a Zone Base?"

"Uhhh.. Well, it was made up of transforming attack modules for Transformers built to my size, only before they figured out how to give us smaller Transformers all the power of the big ones. A strength 10 rating now is just as good as a strength 10 rating then, you see."

She didn't, but Rattrap didn't know how to explain it any better.

"Anyway, things got bad again. We signed a piece of paper and left, and quarantined this world never to return."

"And now you are here." She said, pointing out the contradiction.

'Hey, that first time wasn't our fault, we followed Megatron. and this time it was a distress call."

"You said this was the second oldest site? What is the first?"

"The Ark," Rattrap said, and looked around to get his bearings. "Ok, if that is Look Out Point, then the ark is a few dozen miles that way," he said, pointing. "That is the space ship they originally crashed in. Its kind a buried under a volcano now."

They continued to walk around the Autobot City, its once golden metal plates had gone dingy gray from combat and years of neglect.

"I had heard so many stories about this place from family members," Rattrap said as they walked along long deserted roads and hallways. Many of them did not look safe. "I just had to see it for myself."

The scooter that was carrying Alexis suddenly jerked to a stop, prompting Alexis to get off and ask it what the matter was.

It transformed and beeped franticly, then ran down a hallway as fast as the Minicon could.

Rattrap and Alexis exchanged startled glances then followed at a run.

They rounded a corner and passed through a door that hung open, a large Transformer sized door.

"What is it? What did you find?" Alexis asked the minicon, who was looking up at a table that it couldn't quite reach the top of.

Then Rattrap realized the Minicon wasn't really interested in the Table, but in a wall safe behind it.

Rattrap looked around at the various debris, and set up something of a jump, then rolled back to get a running start, and took off as fast as his wheeled robot mode would carry him. He hit his ramp, and flew into the air, landing on the table and skidding to a stop just before hitting the wall. He pulled out his gun and fired on the ancient Autobot safe.

The door to the safe swung wide, revealing a variety of data disks within, and to their surprise one green Minicon plate.

Rattrap grabbed the plate and handed it down to Alexis before helping himself to as many of the Data Disks as he could carry, resolving to come back for the rest at another time. The title of the top Data Disk caught his attention.

'Evaluation Of Alien Plate for Optimus Prime as prepared by Wheeljack and Preceptor.'

"Ill be a monkey's uncle," Rattrap said. "Optimus Prime knew about these Minicon plates too!"

"Of course he does." Alexis said, not understanding.

"Sorry," Rattrap said. "Different Optimus Prime."

****

"I don't approve of this course of action," Optimus Prime radioed Cheetor.

"Don't worry, we have to do it this way so no one gets hurt, especially the scientists. You don't want them waking those two up," Cheetor said.

"What if they do wake them up," Silverbolt asked his leader.

"Then we take them with us back to Cybertron."

"They are Predicons, Cheetor. You cant reason with them!" Silverbolt said, not noticing the harsh look Black Arachnia just flashed him.

"They are Cybertronian, just like us!" Cheetor replied with a heated whisper. "That war is over, we just have to help them understand that. But personally I hope they stay in stasis lock until we can get them someplace safe."

Silverbolt scowled.

"Just find a hiding place, we will move to take back the bodies once the Scientists leave," Cheetor said, "or if the fools actually manage to activate them."

Silverbolt and Black Arachnia each nodded then disappeared to find their own places of hiding within the Museum. The heated argument that was waiting to occur between them would wait a little while longer.

Cheetor himself decided that he wanted to keep a more direct view of the events, as he transformed into his cheetah form and made for a ventilation duct. It was a tight fit, but he managed to navigate between the walls until he found a duct that afforded him a view of the research the scientists were performing on the Cybertronian bodies.

The scientists were slowly chipping away the stone and rock from the metal of the bodies. Cheetor was genuinely surprised to see a small sample of stabilized Energon Crystal resting on the table. It wasn't much, but it could be just enough to activate them if used properly.

Whoever these humans were, they seemed to have a great deal of knowledge of Transformers, although he suspected that they had little to no knowledge about the merging of organic components into Transformers.

Still, he couldn't imagine what could have happened to leave the two transformers in such a state.

Then Cheetor noticed a change in the bodies, one that the scientists didn't notice right away, although when they did they backed off quickly.

The exposed metal, now much more of it visible now than when they saw them the previous day, began to liquefy.

They were coming back online.

Cheetor prepared to spring into action.

The bodies writhed in agony, shaking loose the last of their rock prisons. The larger one apparently remembered its old biosample, and immediately began to recreate itself in his previous form. Already his exoskeleton was forming, and a tail was forming.

One of the scientists rushed over and rang the alarm. Soon troops and other specialists would arrive and attempt to subdue the newly reactivated Transformers.

The other, smaller one was having a much harder time, it was clearly trying to re-grow his leathery hide, and wings. Apparently it was either more badly damaged than the other, or it no longer had enough raw materials to work with to regenerate its old form. It fell to the ground. Soon it would stop functioning all together and its spark would extinguish.

Cheetor would not allow that.

He charged through the wall vent with a clatter that shocked the scientists almost as much as the sudden appearance of a robotic cheetah. He growled at them, giving them the moment they needed to gather their wits enough to run for their lives.

The celing tiles at the corner of the room collapsed downward and Black Arachnia was standing in the dust. "I should have known you would be too impatient to wait." She said.

"Look after that one," Cheetor said, pointing towards Scorpnok who would soon be fully recovered.

He looked down helplessly at the other form, desperately trying to think of anything he could do to save its life.

The door opened again, allowing Silverbolt to enter. "I got the impression from the panicked crowd that someone made a premature move?"

"Shut up, Silverbolt," Cheetor said.

Black Arachnia shot a web to seal the doorway, then shouted to Silverbolt "Help me hold him!"

Silverbolt joined Black Arachnia in holding Scorpnok down.

"Don't struggle, Scorpnok!" Black Arachnia said, "We're here to help you."

Cheetor closed his eyes, and began looking for his center. that connection with the allspark that Optimus had used so easily. He found it there. Right where Optimus always told him it would be.

He reached towards the smaller form, and began the process of Reformatting the smaller Transformer. The smaller Transformer grew, leathery hide and liquid metal became techno organic metal. Soon, Terrorsaur lived once more.

"A Lava bath never killed any Transformer!" Scorpnok declared. "Who are you guys? Did Megatron send you?"

"I had wondered what happened to you guys," Cheetor said.

"Ugh. Introductions later, we need to get out of here!" Black Arachnia said.

"Right," agreed Cheetor, then activated his radio. "Op--," he began, then changed his mind, so far the Preds didn't recognize them, so he shouldn't use a name that might make them suspicious. "Prime, you ready to extract us?"

"Affirmative, Cheetor."

"Wait, Cheetor?" Terrorsaur began, but Black Arachnia began pushing both him and Scorpnok towards the window.

"Scorp, care to take care of the window for us?"

The Transformer laughed and raised his claw. Click, click. A missile shattered the window, and a portion of the wall.

The five of them ran for the waiting semi truck, ignoring the hale of bullets being fired at them by soldiers that had appeared on the roof of the museum building.

****

Cybertron:

Gigatron looked down from the window of his tower at the masses below. The sudden receding of the plant life had been a minor setback to his plans, but everything was still proceeding smoothly. Things would just progress a little slower now as he would have to use other means to undermine the absent leader's authority.

"Look at them down there, Dinobot. Currying around like insecticon drones. Cybertronians are such disgusting creatures."

"Begging your pardon," Dinobot said, "but aren't we Cybertronians too?"

"A minor technicality. The fact that we think and relish in the thought of carefully orchestrated Destruction to create a better tomorrow sets us well above those. Cybertrons."

"I see. so if they are Cybertrons, what then are we? Predicon? Decepticon? Sharkticon? Stunticon?"

"No. None of the old names, Dinobot. We need something new that does not already reek with the stench of past failures or ill reputations. Instead we shall be something that speaks of our destructive nature."

"Distructicons? Sounds rather camp, not befitting a Warrior."

"No, I think its time we did away with -icons. We shall simply be Destrons, and when we make our presence known, this world and every other will shake with fear!"